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The Mungo State Zero Polyphonic Modular Digital Synthesizer

At the 2010 NAMM Show, John PIllans from Mungo Enterprises introduced one of the most audacious new synths of the show, the Mungo State Zero modular synthesizer.

It’s pure digital hardware, but uses a hands-on patch-cord interface. It offers 8-voice polyphony, full patch recall and knobs for everything. When you recall a patch, the knobs turn relative to the saved state, and the saved patch cord state is used until you make changes.

Because it’s a purely digital synth, you can’t patch analog gear into the front panel, but this is supported via rear connections.

The State Zero is fairly massive, but is also immediate and tactile. It works with or without an external video display, which offers an oscilloscope view, current knob values and more.

The price, $12,000, is going to limit the audience for the State Zero synthesizer. It’s an impressive synthesizer, though, and it will be interesting to see if this technology trickles down into other products.

Check out the video, demos and specs and let us know what you think!

Video and specifications below.

Here’s a video overview of the Mungo State Zero, via the guys at Sonic State.

State Zero Patching:

Interconnections between the modules of the State Zero synthesizer are completed using the included physical 3.5mm cables.

The front panel represents one voice and all 8 notes of polyphony mirror the same configuration. Due to the polyphonic and digital nature of the synthesizer it is not possible to directly interface with analog control voltages in the patch field, rather analog signals must be brought in/out on the DC coupled stereo inputs/outputs at the rear.

When saving a voice all the routes are stored to memory for instant recall later without the need to reinstall the cables. Once recalled it is then possible to overwrite the saved routes simply by installing cables for the new routes, normalling of the connection is accomplished by saving the desired setup to memory location 0 which is automatically loaded on power up and further normalled schemes could be saved to regular memory locations as needed.

All signals within the synthesizer operate at full audio rate and are freely patchable from any source to any destination, scaling is volt/octave for frequency and rate destinations and linear for all others. Midi data is decoded into note/gate/velocity signals along with pitch bender and modulation wheel continuous controllers, or the two DC coupled analog inputs can accept CV or audio data should the need arise. Each parameter of every module is a pair of bipolar controls being the offset and modulation amounts, having a modulation destination for every parameter at full sample rate provides unparalleled flexibility and modulation possibilities.

Integrated in the instrument is a 3 channel oscilloscope with separate autoscaling timebases for the stereo outputs and the primary channel. This primary channel follows the patching and displays the signal present on the last cable to be moved or added, along with an octave scaled spectral analysis. The included 1024×1280 monitor shows these traces along with knob values, a stereo X-Y plot, and period measurement of the primary channel.

“The price, $12,000, is going to limit the audience for the State Zero synthesizer. It’s an impressive synthesizer, though, and it will be interesting to see if this technology trickles down into other products.”

At $12000, the technology will trickle down into competitors’ products for much cheaper.